(09-01-2013, 09:59 PM)Celesse Wrote: Personally, I find all that miqu'ote tribal culture (in Eorzea's setting) and particularly the mating part offsetting. For starters, I've yet to see Tia's or Nuhn's amongst NPCs.Â
And for the aforementioned points, I feel like much of the established miqu'ote lore doesn't make much sense to me.
And so, if there indeed was tribal miqu'otes roaming eorzea, and the mating rituals tied to that, they'd be pretty much living in a very closed society, like the amish. However, that's not concordant at all with what I've personally witnessed in game.
 Realistically, I think that these were just two explanations for why they didn't 'exist' before, in a sense. Being rare and thus being put into certain socially necessary places based on their male gender might explain why they (SE) bothered mentioning those sorts of 'rituals' in the first place. Matriarchal societies denote that women are the ones that go out as warriors and whatnot and men are generally the equivalent of 'housekeepers'-- not always literally, but they might be protected and gently (or harshly) persuaded not to go out and risk their lives and subsequently the lives of their entire species if they keep throwing themselves out on dangerous adventures.
Likewise, males who have 'harems' might not actually be ruling harems like tiny sultans but might, in fact, be more similar to situations such as in India and China where one wife is shared amongst several husbands due to not only a shortage of women but a lack of fraternal income. (i.e. sometimes they can really only afford one wife between two or more husbands). Male Miqo'tes might have no real power in those harems and are, instead, put in a sort of pseudo-role of prestige where they're treated well but don't get to pick and choose their female mates so much as their existing mates choose. Instead they'd get to decide whether a 'lesser' male was able to stay with the group instead of being sent away to be taken in by another group of women or left to wander because he wasn't deemed suitable for breeding.
Male Keepers might be more inclined to listen to the direction of women, especially women who are nearly twice their size (like a Roegadyn /koff) because they've been raised to respect women as leaders. Likewise, maybe a male Keeper would be -less- inclined to listen to women outside or inside his own race because he's tired of hearing it and that's why he left home in the first place. Reflective personalities might crop up more in female Keepers, women who are used to talking down to men regardless of their size and women who are more hesitant to do it because they never agreed with such a cultural hierarchy based on gender.
Similarly, male Seekers might be more open and frivolous with their flirtations, because perhaps they're used to being surrounded by women who want their attention or seeing other, older males able to do so. They might be less inclined to have a serious relationship with anyone, much less anyone outside their race if they chose not to become a Nuhn when given the chance, not wanting any part of such a large responsibility. Adversely, Tias might be more or less inclined based on those similar views, not to mention how a young female Miqo'te might consider her place in the big gender positions of the world.
There are really plenty of things that this could potentially flesh out in the start of a character's personality and it could lead to a healthy bit of character development as a new, slightly less worldly Miqo'te was exposed to the cultures of others and changed their opinion over time. Not all of them are romantic. These very things may also dictate friendships, rivalries, or the choice of who becomes one's enemy.
I agree that what you might see in game might not line up entirely with what's going on, but then, if SE felt so inclined they could give -more- excuses about it. Basing everything we know off a race exclusively by what we see in game isn't entirely commonplace because in many other games there are books and side-games and expansive profiles and such that delve deeper into all that which might not be covered. It could be as simple as SE not having thought of those things right away or not seeing it as important enough to put in game.
Warcraft seems to pretend to take its lore pretty seriously and so does its players, but that doesn't stop things like the Tauren Chieftains or all of the easter egg NPCs from existing in the game and not necessarily in books or the like and things like differing eye-glows and playable Quel'dorei or neutral factions from -not- appearing in the game.
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